Tips and Tricks to Successful Client Retention

You work incredibly hard for your conversions, both online and offline. So it’s important you continue to keep the relationship going with your clients so they keep coming back for more.

As you start to experiment and work to grow your business, it’s your loyal customers who are going to help keep you afloat. In other words, client retention is crucial to overall success.

However, this isn’t always as easy as it seems. Now that so much business is done online, it’s more important than ever to create and maintain relationships with every single customer. Simply sending a “thank you” message isn’t going to set you apart from the rest, so you have to get creative if you want to maintain your clientele.

5 Ways to Help Improve Your Client Retention

Below are a few different ways that you can help improve your client retention rates:

You have to appeal to the ego

This might sound a little bit obvious or general, but what many companies actually forget is that “knowing your audience” isn’t always enough. You need to get to know someone on a deeper level and then figure out how to create a brand message that lines up perfectly with whatever it is that person wants. People like things that resemble them, so every detail matters. According to a HelpScout article, this cognitive bias is called implicit egotism.

So how do you make this happen? You want to build an emotional connection. This doesn’t mean you need to make someone cry or laugh so hard they fall out of their chairs, it just means you have to show that you’re just as passionate about what interests them as they are. This helps establish trust. Follow your data and start creating videos or infographics about things your audience enjoys. I recommend checking out this article from Moz that talks about humanizing your brand.

Offer relevant promotions

You want people to remain actively interested in your brand, so give them what they want! Everyone wants to be rewarded, so make this a reality. Offer promotions that are relevant and can keep your customers wanting more. This is the oldest trick in the book, yet as fancy online marketing techniques and social media come to the forefront, the power of a good promotion is often forgotten. This will lure people back into your company, but hopefully have them keep coming back in the hopes that you’ll offer another relevant promotion soon. If you can make it a habit, your clients will make it a habit too.

Get your whole team involved

It shouldn’t just be up to your sales department or a small team that focuses on client retention. Your entire company should be able to help, or at least have access to what is going on from the customer end. Tools like Campfire can help you keep everyone in the loop so that you don’t miss a beat. If someone has a question about something that sales can’t answer, it’s best if others in your company can be alerted right away. Customers are going to like seeing more than one person helping so that they know they’re getting the best service possible.

Pay attention to your words

You want to use persuasive language and work to reduce friction. Words like “free” or “instantly” can make someone feel like they are getting something unique or they are getting some sort of deal. Reassuring words like “watch a quick video” as opposed to just “watch a video” can also help you persuade someone by putting them at ease. This is a tip that works best when analyzing your content marketing and your promotions online and offline, but even in person using this type of language can make a difference.

Of course, you have to also remember that you need to follow through with whatever it is you’re saying. Don’t get caught too caught up!

Use surveys or other feedback methods to hear from clients directly

Last but not least, having some sort of customer feedback system is going to be a great way to gain insight into what your customers want and whether or not they’re likely to come back. It takes a while to gather real data that you can use, but the sooner you can get started the sooner you can start implementing new practices to improve retention. I talked with Scott Langdon, managing partner of HigherVisibility, who explained a few key things to look for:

Focus on individual clients as opposed to looking at all of your customers as a whole. See if you can segment those taking the survey or your feedback form and then figure out what each person thought of their whole experience.

Pay attention to your time period. Make sure you’re seeing which areas have improved and which have not over time (did your sales team do a better job, your persuasive ad didn’t show any changes, etc.).

A survey at the end of a purchase is a great way to get people to participate. However, it’s also a good idea to pay attention to the comments on Google+, Yelp, and other review sites as part of your customer feedback initiative.

The Takeaway

In the end, it’s important to keep in mind that you won’t always be able to keep your clients coming back. You can do everything right, but if they found something elsewhere or they only need you for a one time situation, then they probably won’t reciprocate. Still, it’s important that you give every customer 100 percent. If even 50 percent come back again, you’ve done well!

Do you have any more ideas for improving client retention? Let us know what has worked for you in the past or what you would like to see from a company in the comment section below.